Basic Stitch Tutorial - Ladder Stitch

Today's basic stitch tutorial is ladder stitch, which is a very useful technique to learn. Incredibly easy to do, it often forms the basis for many other stitches, including herringbone and brick stitch.

You can work ladder stitch using one or more beads, but for the purpose of this tutorial I'm making a strip that's two beads high (this is sometimes called a two bead stack). If you need to make a strip one bead high, simply pick up one bead at a time instead of two.

Thread your needle with a comfortable length of thread and pick up a stop bead. Leaving about an 8" tail, sew through the stop bead once or twice more being careful not to split the thread. The stop bead is optional but it will help to keep the beads positioned as you work.

Pick up 4 seed beads, slide them down to the stop bead and sew through the first 2 seed beads in the same direction...



Pull the thread snug, positioning the beads so that the two pairs sit side by side and sew back down through the second pair...



Pick up 2 more seed beads and sew down through the adjacent pair of beads...



Sew back up through the pair you just added...



Continue in this way, picking up 2 beads at a time until the strip is as wide as you need.



Don't forget to check back next week when I'll be using this ladder stitch strip as a base for herringbone :)

Pearl Ladder Ring Tutorial

Quite often I have very small amounts of beads left over from larger projects and I am sure you do too. I hate to throw them away but it's also a nuisance to have almost empty bead tubes cluttering up your bead stash. If you are anything like me, you really don't have the extra space. So I came up with this little project which uses ladder stitch to turn those little bits and bobs into a ring that works up quickly and easily and would make a great last minute gift.


You will need a few gramms of size 11 seed beads, 6mm focal beads ( I used 3 x swarovski pearls) and fireline or wildfire.


1. Thread your needle with approx 1.5 metres of thread, pick up 6 size 11 beads and go back up the first 3 you add, snug up the last 3 beads you added next to them and go down through them.

2. Pick up 3 seed beads, go back though the last 3 beads added in step 1 and then back down through the 3 beads added in this step.

3. Repeat step 2 until your ladder strip is the required length for your finger.

4. Join the 2 ends of the strip by going up through the first 3 beads in your strip and back down the last 3 beads of the strip. Repeat this step to reinforce the join.

5. Weave in ends, tying several half hitch knots as you do so.

6. Repeat steps 1-5 for a second strip, but weave in only the shorter tail thread, leaving a long thread to add the centre beads.

7. With your needle & thread exiting a set of seed beads in strip 2, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through a set of 3 seed beads in strip 1 pulling fairly tight to join the strips together. *Go up through the next set of 3 seed beads, pick up 4 seed beads and go up through the next set of 3 seed beads in strip 2. Repeat from * one more time for a total of 3 sets of 4 seed beads. Exiting with your thread in the centre, pick up 1 size 6mm bead and go up through strip, repeat this pattern of 3 sets of 4 seed beads, 1 set of 6mm bead as required, ending with 3 sets of 4 seed beads. My ring is as follows 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads, 1 set 6mm, 3 sets of seed beads.

8. Weave in tail, using several half hitch knots as you do so.

I hope you enjoy this quick little project, don't forget to add pics to the OTTBS Flickr group if you make one. We would love to see them!

Happy beading!

Sarahx

New Goal For April

I trawled through all my mags and books late last night and decided on the cover project of Beadwork Feb/Mar 10. The project is called Retro Ruffles Cuff by Rachel Nelson-Smith. I started while watching the new Doctor Who and managed to do the ladder stitch base. I didn't have button in my stash and instead used a lovely 14mm rondelle. I have done quite a bit more of it today, it is going well, mainly because I am using single thread I think. The instructions do state double but as I learnt on my last piece, that just doesn't work for me!

1st Goal Complete (Liz)

Happy Easter to you all! Well I am pleased to say that I've completed my first goal and, even if I do say so myself, ended up with a lovely cuff for my sister! The design is a new tutorial from Lynn Davy which I thought would be perfect for using up some of the bugle beads I have and never use. I still have loads of those Navy Iris 15s left but I was happy to use some of them at last plus half a pack of twisted bugle beads, the rest of a pack of purple size 11s, some metallic silver beads and these gorgeous black and purple AB faceted beads that I seem to have had forever! I hope you like it.